Databases are useful for storing information in a manner that allows facile searching and retrieval of specific data. Examples of database programs that allow data to be stored in a relational database are Oracle (Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, Calif.), Access (Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Wash.), DB2 (International Business Machines Corporation, New Orchard Road, Armonk, N.Y.), SQL/DS (International Business Machines Corporation, New Orchard Road, Armonk, N.Y.), Sybase (Sybase, Inc., 6475 Christie Ave., Emeryville, Calif.), SQLbase (Centura Corporation, 975 Island Drive, Redwood Shores, Calif.), INFORMIX (Informix Corporation, 4100 Bohannon Drive, Menlo Park, Calif.), and CA-OpenIngres (Computer Associates International, Inc., One Computer Associates Plaza Islandia, N.Y.), among others. These database programs, or database management systems (DBMSs) generally use structured query language (SQL) to interrogate and process data in a database.
Databases such as those listed above have been used with object-oriented information schemes so that data can be entered, stored, and retrieved in a manner that represents the real world elements from which the data is taken. Examples of such object-oriented database schemes include schemes for semantic object modeling, object and class elements, and nontraditional object oriented databases (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,809,297, 5,960,438, 5,819,086, 6,047,284, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,100, all of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety).
Although databases have been implemented for a variety of purposes, representation of laboratory procedures in a database can be difficult. Different laboratory procedures can have many different types of components that are specific to one or a few procedures. In order to use a conventional database organizational scheme that has been designed for one laboratory procedure with a laboratory procedure for which it has not been designed, significant alterations in the scheme can be required.
What is needed in the art are methods for organizing laboratory information in a database that can be applied to a wide variety of laboratory procedures without the need for modification of the methods.